My worry has been people getting too close, not too far, all of my life.
I’ve moved nearly a score of times and had grave and debilitating mental health issues to solve. I’ve made only a handful of friends in that time, and I am in touch with only one of them today. And I married the other.
The simple answer is that I was never a good friend; I was just too frightened and crazy. To be a good friend, I think, one has to open up fully to another human being, as Maria and I have done with one another. We are friends, and we are lovers.
But it doesn’t seem to be transferable.
How could I possibly know what a good friend is? I’ve never had one to my knowledge or made one.
I asked Maria the other day what her definition of a friend was, and she gave me a clear and sensible answer right away. When she asked me what a friend was, I had no answer. I have no idea. That can be a problem.
There are many people in the world that I like, even love, and that love me in return. I have never seen most of them and rarely, if ever, speak with them.
The Internet has enabled me to make some excellent and valuable friends, and I can do this because I never see them in person, speak to them face to face, or visit their homes and invite them to mine.
For someone with a phobia about getting too close, this is a Godsend. Maria has broken through this moat, and a raging stream of openness, change, and growth has come pouring through. I can never put all of that water back in its bottle.
But it hasn’t resolved the friendship issue. I still don’t have many.
I don’t know what friendship is, but I have a pretty good idea of why it isn’t much in my life.
When I was a kid, I hid in my room mostly, reading books and comics; I had one friend, a first cousin, who I saw every couple of weeks. Everyone in North America seemed to know I was a bedwetter, which cramped my social life, in and out of school.
My cousin and I watched TV together. I have no idea if he is alive still, or if so, where he might live. I don’t think we liked each other much.
Apart from my sister, there are no relatives that I am in touch with or socialize with or speak to.
It scares me. When Maria and I began dating, I often said – even bragged – that I didn’t want to be touched. I was always building that wall.
I now know that I said this because I very much wanted to touch Maria, which scared the hell out of me.
After Maria made it clear that she had no intention of resuming a sexless life (I was living one also), I stunned myself by walking into her studio one night and telling her all of the dirty things I hoped to do with her.
It was almost as if a dybbuk had taken over my mind; I’ve never said those things before or since and had no idea I even knew the words. I’m grateful to the dybbuk for saving me from an awful fate.
The dirty words did the trick. We started dating right away.
Intimacy has always terrified me, and for good reasons, which is why I have been so happy and productive online and in my life in a small village in upstate New York.
The people I interact with are often thousands of miles away. What remains of my family lives in New York City and hates the country.
I don’t throw parties, and people don’t invite me to them; one friend told me I intimidated people, that my brief celebrity and openness scared people off.
As I grow older and presumably wiser, I am more and more content with who I am and how I am. I don’t need a lot of friends in my life. There are two or three people I have been talking to once in a while, and I’m enjoying it. But if history has any weight, those relationships will fade away.
Maria says my definition of friendship is too narrow and inadequate.
I have several people I care about and who care about me that I am often in touch with. Those, she says, are friends. But my therapist has pointed out that none of them ever get too close, and when they do, the friendship doesn’t last too long.
I get it; I accept it. I’m okay with it.
I had a rough time after making a movie out of one of my books with stalkers, groupies, and people who wanted and needed things from me that I could not give them. People loved me for all of the wrong reasons, and when they found out who I really was, they felt betrayed.
That turned me away from making friends for a while.
Now, those people are mostly gone, and people are no longer trying to get close to me in that way, moving here because of me, or falling in love with my books rather than me, or with their idea of me rather than me.
Celebrity is a two-edged sword. I loved talking about my books to crowds of people; my ego swelled. But I hated being someone people who didn’t know me could fall in love with. That brought about some awful tragedies. I’ll keep that moat filled.
One woman who came in love with my books came to one of our Open Houses because she loved me, she said, and I heard her tell her husband, “I like the guy in the books a lot better.” Me too, I wanted to say but held my tongue.
Another admired me and flattered me and asked her to help me become a writer, and she even stayed over to visit us over from time to time and called me on the phone every day.
I did love being admired and flattered, I confess, I never thought to question it. Nor did I ever believe that I was terrific.
That kind of relationship is always a mistake, I haven’t spoken to her in years, and she lets me know that she hates me.
When you write as often and personally as I do, schizophrenia of a kind becomes almost inevitable.
There is the person in the books and the person on the blog, and then there is me. They are not all the same person, and only one is real. It is much easier to look good in books or on a blog than in real life.
It turns out I was much better at creating admirable characters than being one. I’m working hard to be a good human on my terms, no one else’s.
I’ve also learned to be happy and accepting of my life as it is.
The good thing about growing older is that sooner or later, I’ll run out of time to ponder this question of friendship. And does anyone but me care?
Honestly, I was not cut out to open up to people at close range. I see now that this is unlikely to change. I think I was just not created or raised to understand friendship or be a good friend.
That’s not a Disney ending, but it’s a good and truthful one for me.
Suddenly, I have everything I want and need and yearn for nothing. I even got the Leica I wanted for years.
And also the best friend a human can have, right here in the house, next to me in bed.
I live for today. I am happy now. This minute. Every single day.
Aaaaa…! Thank you, thank you. I didn’t realize how much I have been the same, and I write to know and remember my life, and I share my truth freely, but feel a need to always find a sliver of a silver lining (it’s always there too). I have recoiled from people who praise me too enthusiastically, and think I need their friendship. Oh my please no! Thanks but I need my solitude. I have a few old friends I am safe with, but never see in person. One lives less than a mile away “as the crow flies” ☺️ THANK you for sharing your story and your truth… Again…
A distant friend in time and space, but close in heart,
Suzi
Back in the 1970s ! After I was widowed, I became a member of Women’s groups. one at a time because I moved with my children) I found this very, very pleasant.we opened our hearts up to each other and two of them have remained in touch with me over the years. At one time it was suggested that our husbands and male friends should meet in a similar way. Several of them were convinced that we talked about them–not so, We did so on only the one occasion to decide that they should meet. Well, they did and it was a complete flop! They could not talk and my new husband told me that they ended up talking about football, which bored him silly. To me, that seemed to typify a big difference.
I once read a theory that suggested back in cave days the men hunted and had to slink around after prey in complete silence. Women in the fields, called and talked to each other and their children to keep in touch and not get lost… Who knows? But there is such a big difference here between the two sexes in general relationships.
Love, of course, is a different matter. Although in both my marriages I made the first approaches, to extremely shy men.
Jon…
First, some semantics: the difference between a friend and an acquaintance.
For a friend or an acquaintance, three elements must exist:
• Agreeable Personalities. Must be open to communication.
• Bonding opportunities. The chance to share.
• Common interests. An avenue for rich discussion.
A shared context can present bonding opportunities, to promote common interests as a basis for advancing acquaintances. A roommate, a bowling buddy, a neighbor, a fellow hobbyist, or a classmate might not be classified as a friend. But, as relationships in this shared context expand to encompass personal thoughts, knowledge, and experiences, an acquaintance could grow into a friendship.
My parents, my education and the career kept me moving from the Northeast, to South Florida, to the Mid-Atlantic, to the Midwest, to the West Coast, to Texas, back to Florida, and to the Desert Southwest. But each time I moved, contexts changed and droves of previous acquaintances seemed to fade away. The last time I saw a high school buddy was 20 years ago.
Now, my lifeline of friendship is modern communications. I grew up with a little brother. We are friends today, but we live so far apart we don’t see each other often. We do speak or Zoom conference every week and exchange photos. Current technology has really helped.
I may live in the present, but also keep close company with the past. Everything considered, those were good times, which is strange. My mother raised us, and while it seemed we were always scrimping, income didn’t constrain our outlooks.
I attended high school with millionaires’ children. Relationship choices there became a “birds of a feather” class distinction, with emphasis on material possessions. Still, we “have-nots” discovered our natural cohorts. I learned that rich kids could be regular people, while aspiring middle-class teens could be snobs. But they all needed to be approached as individuals.
Following school, relationships became compartmentalized within contexts. Work friends talked mostly about work, sports friends about sports, night school classmates about schoolwork, etc. We also socialized, and some became roommates to share expenses.
In business, friendship was never an issue. Leadership was a lonely position, taking flak from both above and below. Management/subordinate relationships could build trust, respect, and even fondness, but they precluded friendships.
As I aged, renting with roommates became less feasible. And, work filled more of my time. But that changed when I met my future wife. After I began working from home and entered active retirement, our married life expanded into a much larger context. We even shared doctor stories.
Our other relationships amount to a few old friends and a diminishing collection of relatives, where an accumulated treasure of shared memories is a source for friendship reinforcement.
Jon, I have learned through good counseling that the inability to be intimate (be vulnerable and open) is usually caused by childhood trauma; you’ve shared your considerable childhood trauma with us. As children, when we learn that we can’t even trust the adults who are our first Gods, then the rest of the world becomes suspect, and can stay that way. We were not taught how to be safe in close-range relationships. Safety is number one for all beings, it’s hot-wired into our brains – the reptilian part of our brain. Closeness to others meant potential danger. We are fortunate that we can come to some sense of intimacy later in life, as you have. Maybe some people do have the Disney ending, but I don’t know any of them. Even in my community of recovered men and women, people accustomed to desiring change and seeking it out, most still struggle with intimacy. It’s progress rather than perfection.
thanks for this to you/maria
If Zinnia had a voice in this post, I have to wonder what she’d say. I’d ask the sheep but I’m afraid they’re biased 🙂
I sometimes wonder if there’s anything between those beautiful eyes and ears…just love
Jon, I have followed you since “Running to the Mountain” and read your books, yada,yada. I follow your blog because you express some common beliefs and ideals, but it was the cabin and dogs that I connected with. I always wondered what you would be like in person and I have comminicated years ago by email and book signings.
I read you very early in the morning, so I’m really not inclined to laugh out loud at a post. But the remark by the lady at the Open House is laugh out loud funny…“I like the guy in the books a lot better.”…. I can imagine that is the feelings of a lot of people who think they know people through the media. Reality is often different then perception gleemed through books and blogs. But on the other hand, it shows how good of a writer someone is if they can develop characters that people relate to. The reason to me your blog is so popular and long running is the quality of the writing. I read other blogs and usually stop due to remedial writing that makes for boring copy.
Probably your biggest problem is finding content to publish. It takes a pretty gifted writer to hold peoples attention over posts on Air Plants and window frost. Most people can’t do that. So, whichever Jon Katz we get, I hope he can continue to churn out new stories and ideals.
Thanks, Ed, lovely and thoughtful note, I appreciate it. Writing is very easy for me, it is never a problem. The blog is about a life, a kind of memoir, so that makes it easier if I see it that way..it seems there is something happening every minute in our lives on the farm…I am never at a loss for ideas.. I appreciate the note..